Tuesday, July 27, 2010

This first poem I find very nervewracking. I don't really want to post it which is why I'm posting it. There is A LOT of stuff going on in here. Mostly stuff only I would notice but if you wanna pick it apart and make guesses, have fun. It's interesting to think about connections. What frame of thinking led me to write a line and how that line influenced a line in a later stanza.

"as seen through a door"

empty sounds dancing like fearful tears
balancing my outbreaks w/ the shape of streets to come
calming myself with the idea of peace
i throw my voice, and remove myself like vapor

if i outstayed my welcome, i am sorry
i can still feel the taste of your fingers slipping from mine
oh so silken, you infect my head like rhthym
i wanted your burden inside of mine, tucked into my inner like an infant's kiss

there are shadows that populate
the hall outside my bedroom where i stare as i write
the dancing of a woman, and the violence she brought
a foreign prayer trapped at my back, it commences my mutter

never more numb than the fuel inside my fingers
a pregnancy escapes my throat, and i
beat back things best left buried
a simple good night call from an ex-lover, and i'm back there, puking up my sorrow

These two feel like very close cousins to me. Both are sixteen lines, (but quite a bit of my stuff is sixteen, if I have a prefered format it's that) and both were written inbetween 11 and 12 at night, but beyond that I think the obvious similiarities are gone.
Abstractly, I think they're about the people I've been thinking about lately and whether they're thinking about me (I know some of them are).
I can point to a few lines in both of these, and know exactly which person influenced it. It's nothing direct, and how I got there would only ever make sense to me.
Again, none of this is direct. Nothing in either of these was written to or about any specific person. I guess it's like ideas leading me to other ideas.

"how to leave a room"

let me apologize
for every mistake before i make them
forever, i will write you poetry
i am sorry for this as well

don't get tatooed anywhere
forget my name as soon as i've said it
these things will only bring you sadness
i'll skip town leaving only my boots to remind you

you'll stay young eternal inside my head
your skin won't sag, and your breath will never sour
my imagination is a breeding ground for impossible things
it's there you will flourish, and fear nothing for always

let me kiss your lips one last quickly
remember the scent of my fading away
the last chords i sing will be
your name exaggerated, and soft as breeze

Wednesday, July 21, 2010

scribbled a notbook
went flipping back
found your name
next to a whiskey stain, and a star

strangled my anger, went back, rewrote a poem
about the day you hit me
at westlake, and i remember
laughing, as you walked away

sipped my coffee, frowned, and thought
about that day, you told me to wait
i tried to stay away
i had been drinking, and didn't want another fight
damage is damage, and it never lands the way we think it will

startled into stories, i will
put my pen down, and pick it back up
i draw old lovers back into lies, i could never fix them
in fiction, i am a beggar
in fiction, i am safe

There is only one other person who could maybe know the truth behind this poem. This is a mingling of true stories with false and I doubt that person will ever even read this, so I'm safe.
I found it in a notbook, yesterday. I remember when I wrote it I didn't think much of it but when I reread it I thought I should do a re-write and give it a title. I changed a decent amount of stuff, made some stuff truer, and I like it.
I'm not explaining the title, either.
And now! On to anthropology homework.

Sunday, July 18, 2010

Life has been irritaing me the last few days. Maybe it's because I haven't beenwriting like I would prefer. I've had two supposedly sure fire lines blow up in my face recently ("we communicate with cigarettes winking in the dark", "give me a woman who is ugly when she's crying").
Or eh. These things happen and maybe it's just been the slowness of life that has been so grating. I have less to complain than I've had in a while so I dunno. School is good, the internship is cool. Friends and other people are a pain in the ass, but that will never change.
I just go through my phases, I guess. Sometimes everything is beautiful, more often life is stress and work. I just have to deal, with it and find joy where I can.

Monday, July 12, 2010

i'm up, in prayer, my head is low
i'm suspicious of everything, but let the words flow
a string tied around my finger
so i can remember not to be afraid

i grow older, i grow less bitter
more comfortable with faith
less worried about everything
darling, we'll die, but we'll have each other until then

listen to the sound of my voice, how it cracks and whistles
i've seen signs of better days to come
open doors and pretty girls
and a lack of desperation

This is flawed but I like it well enough. I was surprised when it wasn't four stanzas long but it works w/ three. Other stuff.. the darling in 2:4 is generic
I've been thinking a lot about faith lately, maybe I've needed it. I'm also really worried about a friend right now but that's completely out of my control.

Saturday, July 10, 2010

thank your god for the pills
if that's your thing
i, myself
am too old to believe in god

dizzy as hell but
still haven't had enough
almost drunk enough for prayer
almost ready to smile

as i stare at wooden crosses
i shake my head and inhale
these things scare me, why
don't they focus on the way he lived?

i have my own gods
may they die and go
they come in bottles and join me in ill times
wake me up for a short while and then send me back nowhere

i used to think i was breathing for no reason
but now i'm tired of hiding
i want lightning, i want fire
i want to break down doors and celebrate with things exploding

if god is your thing
i wish you joy, you won't regret it
i can't settle myself with easy ideas
some days i wish i could

I called this what I did because April was a sad person who once said "I'm too old to believe in god". We were drinking in the Sodo district of Seattle with someone (I don't remember who). Somehow we got on the subject of god and she said that. She was 55 or 56, I think. I told her I was going to use that line, and eventually I did. I think she might of been brilliant once but she wasn't in the short time I knew her. Her body and mind were pretty ravaged by drugs and alcohol. She was one of the craziest people I have ever known, but I loved her to death. I speak in the past tense because she died in a pretty horrible way last summer.
The poem really has nothing to do with her but I wanted to put her name on it because she was the type of person the world forgets pretty much immediately. I think I wrote it within my first ninety days of sobriety last year. I was thinking a lot about A.A. higher power stuff and struggling. I came to terms with that stuff early this year. This poem is less reflective of how I feel now but I don't outright bash religion in it so I think it's OK
I think it's pretty good . The only thing I don't like is stanza three, line four. I tried to write: "why do they focus on the way he died instead of the way he lived". That didn't fit right but I think I got my point across well enough.

Saturday, July 3, 2010

I was going to post a poem called "no art poem" but I realized needed to rewrite the last stanza. Nothing recent I want to post right now, either. Aw well, such is life. One good thing happened recently. I got an internship at kexp (kexp.org). This is more exciting than anything else I have going on.

I should write some new stuff this weekend. That's not a plan, only a desire. I can never plan when it comes, and I don't like forcing it. Sometimes the words come in trickles, sometimes like a flood. I wrote two things last weekend, maybe they'll appear here soon.